Warm-water native fish are left out in the
cold

Little is being done to pull the
Southwest’s native fish back from the brink of extinction,
according to an independent team of biologists. The study of a
dozen warm-water fish in Arizona’s Gila River Basin found
that half the species no longer exist in wild populations, while
five species occupy less than one-fifth of their historic
range.

The government has recovery plans for the fish,
which are already listed as threatened or endangered. But
scientists say those plans aren’t being followed or
aren’t working: No attempts to transplant the spikedace have
succeeded. Only 24 of 175 attempts to reintroduce the Gila
topminnow have worked, with the fish now limited to 5 percent of
its historic range. The authors of the report — fish experts
from federal agencies, Arizona State University, the University of
Arizona and The Nature Conservancy — say they joined together
"to fill the void" created when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
disbanded its Desert Fishes Recovery Team in 2002.

"The
deteriorating status of these populations can be reversed, but
scientists are saying none of the steps promised are being taken,"
says Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility, which publicized the study.

Recovery plans often aren’t fully implemented and the
government isn’t legally required to carry them out, says
Jeff Humphrey of the Fish and Wildlife Service. He noted the study
didn’t include the Apache trout, a cold-water species that
may become the first fish removed from the endangered species list.

"The current threats to a lot of these fish have been
here for 200 years," Humphrey says. "To expect us to turn that
around in a period of even a decade is pie in the sky."